We are interested in the design and construction of synthetic biological systems which process matter, energy and information in useful ways not observed in nature. Our research involves both the development of foundational biological technologies and their use for applications, mainly in chemical manufacture and in health. An important aspect of this research is developing reliable approaches to implement synthetic biological systems using diverse organisms important (or with the potential to be) in industrial or medical applications. Engineering metabolism is often important for our applications, and a particular interest is how non-natural metabolic constraints can be used to re-direct fluxes and achieve high yields.

We work on several different types of organisms, but focus most on Clostridium and cyanobacteria, in which we are developing and applying new approaches to exploit the great metabolic potential of these important microorganisms.

If you are not a scientist (or even if you are) and would like a non-specialist introduction to some of our research interests and motivations, have a look at John's ‘IdeasLab’ presentation at the World Economic Forum:

Before starting his group in 2013, John was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Bayer lab in CSynBI, where he worked on synthetic metabolic systems in microbial photosynthesis and anaerobic fermentation.

Prior to joining Imperial College in 2011, John completed his PhD and worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Nottingham, where he developed crucial genetic tools for the industrially and medically important bacterial genus Clostridium. These tools (e.g. see clostron.com) have had a great impact on the field, and are used by John and many others in genetic and metabolic engineering for medical and industrial applications.